I direct readers to Prof. Schaff's excellent post below on polygamy and marriage. I tend to approach this issue from the point of view that Professor Larry Arnhart describes as Darwinian Natural Right. According to this view, some things are just and others unjust by nature. That premise of course Arnhart and I share with Lincoln and Jefferson. But here nature is understood in light of the Darwinian dynamics that shape and preserve human nature. I think that this view provides richer and more reliable answers than any previous approach, though it is largely consistent with thinking that goes all the way back to Socrates.
Professor Schaff's links provide me with a good example. Maggie Gallagher presents the Canadian argument for gay marriage:
IN ORDERING GAY MARRIAGE on June 10, 2003, the highest court in Ontario, Canada, explicitly endorsed a brand new vision of marriage along the lines Wolfson suggests: "Marriage is, without dispute, one of the most significant forms of personal relationships. . . . Through the institution of marriage, individuals can publicly express their love and commitment to each other. Through this institution, society publicly recognizes expressions of love and commitment between individuals, granting them respect and legitimacy as a couple."
What this fails to explain is why "expressions of love and commitment between individuals" needs public recognition. If a man and a women, or two women, have a loving relationship, why does this relationship need to be legitimized by the state? Is it illegitimate in the absence of such recognition? Does a relationship have to be sexual to require public expression and legitimacy? What about two guys who are just really good chums? What about a woman who, in the eyes of the Church, is married to Jesus?
Here is Gallagher's opposing view:
What is marriage for? Marriage is a virtually universal human institution. In all the wildly rich and various cultures flung throughout the ecosphere, in society after society, whether tribal or complex, and however bizarre, human beings have created systems of publicly approved sexual union between men and women that entail well-defined responsibilities of mothers and fathers. Not all these marriage systems look like our own, which is rooted in a fusion of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian culture. Yet everywhere, in isolated mountain valleys, parched deserts, jungle thickets, and broad plains, people have come up with some version of this thing called marriage. Why?
Because sex between men and women makes babies, that's why. Even today, in our technologically advanced contraceptive culture, half of all pregnancies are unintended: Sex between men and women still makes babies. Most men and women are powerfully drawn to perform a sexual act that can and does generate life. Marriage is our attempt to reconcile and harmonize the erotic, social, sexual, and financial needs of men and women with the needs of their partner and their children.
This is much clearer. Surely the universal institution of marriage has something to do with procreation. But again, it is not quite clear why the biologically procreative relationship needs this public sanction more than other ambiguous and complex human partnerships. And it needs it so much that almost all societies have had to bring such social pressures to bear.
Darwinian Natural Right gets at last to the bottom of the question. Marriage exists because, unlike women, men don't know who their children are. In most mammalian species, male parental investment ends with the sexual act. Females bear all the responsibility for raising the offspring. But in a few species fathers do stick around to invest their time and resources in the young. Wolves stand out. So do we.
But this is a risky strategy. How does he know that these offspring are in fact his? The social science think tank known as the Grateful Dead put it this way:
Got a wife in chino, babe, and one in cherokee
The first one says she’s got my child, but it don’t look like me.
Evolution solves this problem for different animals in different ways. Wolves, for example, are often locked together for hours after intercourse. This ensures that the male does not disengage until his mate is safely pregnant, and before some johnnycomelately can pollute the nursery. Among human males, sperm count rises whenever the male is separated from his mate for long periods of time. Who knows whose sperm he has to compete with?
Marriage is a social construct. Its essential purpose to ensure the husband that her children are his children, and so to encourage him to invest in their care. It is undeniably one of the most successful social constructs in the history of our species, and forms the foundation of every society. Whenever we think about marriage and especially about reforming marriage, we need to keep this in mind.
When we think about gay marriage, the first thing to recognize is that it would extend the institution of marriage to include a relationship that has no connection with its original, biologically inspired purpose. But that hardly means that the extension is unwise. Many human inventions are constantly adapted to new purposes. Fire was originally a means of warmth and a deterrent to predators. Then we discovered cooking. Later, we used it to transform metals into more useful forms. The most compelling argument for gay marriage is that it would encourage male homosexuals to become less promiscuous, thus reducing their vulnerability to STDs. I am skeptical, but these arguments are worth considering.
But if we wish to take this step, we need to get away from the Canadian idea that marriage is liberating. It isn't. It is all about exchanges and obligations. It gets social support at the cost of social responsibility. This ain't Woodstock, man. Its Leave It to Beaver.
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